Manitoba Hydro says about 750 people in northern Manitoba remained without power Wednesday afternoon after heavy snow over the Thanksgiving long weekend wreaked havoc on parts of the province.
Hydro says it hopes to restore power to those affected by the end of the day, especially now that roads have been cleared in some areas and crews have an easier time accessing downed equipment.
The storm initially led to outages for more than 12,000 Manitobans on Monday, and Hydro spokesman Peter Chura told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg that weather conditions continue to create a challenge for restoring power.
“When you have a weather situation like we had — so many hundreds of lines down, and in some cases, difficult to even get to these areas, let alone find the problem and get it worked on,” he said.
“In a lot of cases, more crews really wouldn’t make a difference if they can’t get to the damage to fix it.”
Chura said while the Crown utility is aiming to have everything back up on Wednesday, it can’t provide any more of a specific timeline due to the challenges of safely restoring power in some of the affected locations.
“You hate to give people that guarantee and get their hopes up … but people are having extended outages,” he said.
“At this point, we’re doing everything we can to get the power back on as safely and quickly as possible.”